Copyright 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
October 24, 1999, Sunday, THREE STAR EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A13
LENGTH: 368 words
HEADLINE:
WEST VIRGINIA WORRIES FEDERAL RULING WILL RUIN COAL INDUSTRY;
JUDGE BARS
MINING OPERATIONS NEAR STREAMS
BYLINE: The Associated
Press
DATELINE: CHARLESTON, W.VA.
BODY:
West Virginia's coal mining industry
warned that it is headed for ruin, and the governor ordered a state hiring and
spending freeze after a federal judge barred the dumping of strip mine
waste in streams.
"The impact of this ruling will be
devastating to state and local budgets," Gov. Cecil Underwood said Friday.
In a victory for environmentalists who sued the coal industry last year,
U.S. District Judge Charles Haden II ruled Wednesday that dumping mining waste
in West Virginia's streams fouls the water in violation of the federal Clean
Water Act.
The law bans mining operations within 100 feet of a
stream.
The ruling could all but shut down mountaintop removal mining, a
strip mining technique used increasingly in Appalachia. The top of a ridge is
sheared off, the coal is extracted, and the leftover rock and dirt are pushed
into a nearby river valley.
Coal industry leaders warned that the ruling
could also cripple traditional underground mining, which also disposes of waste
in river valleys.
"They gave us a death sentence, is what they've done,"
said Ernest Woods, president of United Mine Workers Local 5958. "We're dinosaurs
now. And they'll be going after the deep mines next."
West Virginia is
the second largest coal-producing state, behind Wyoming. The industry accounts
for 3 percent of all jobs in West Virginia, down from 9.5 percent in 1979. The
nearly 19,000 jobs tied to the industry provided more than $ 950 million in
wages in 1998, with workers averaging $ 50,800 a year.
The state had 392
underground mines and 227 strip mines last year, with strip mining accounting
for less than one-third of West Virginia's total production of 181 million tons
of coal.
State regulators said they do not yet know how many mines are
affected by the ruling. But the state Tax Department said it could cost West
Virginia as much as $ 100 million this fiscal year, out of an annual budget of $
2.6 billion.
As a result, the governor told state agencies to prepare
for a 10 percent budget cut in January, and put a freeze on hiring and spending.
West Virginia's congressional delegation has asked federal regulatory
agencies to join in an appeal of the ruling.
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October 24, 1999 
